The American India Foundation Trust (AIF) is dedicated to uplifting India’s disadvantaged, with a particular emphasis on women, children, and youth, by implementing impactful initiatives in education, healthcare, and livelihoods to address the complex issue of poverty. Established more than twenty years ago following the Gujarat earthquake, AIF was launched as a joint humanitarian effort by Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ji and Bill Clinton, impacting the lives of 16.51 million of India’s poor across 35 states and union territories.

Through the Udyamini-Rural Women Entrepreneurship program, AIF along with the partner organisations intend to address the problem of Low Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) in Rural India of Assam and West Bengal by creating a robust environment for Rural Women. AIF anchors the tea value chain in Assam working closely with a technical agency and serving as the program’s secretariat, facilitating coordination and convenings among stakeholders.

Centre for Education and Communication is a non-profit, labour resource centre, founded in 1983 with the mission to build a wider horizon with labour and small producers to uphold their rights and enhance their dignity and power. Over the past four decades, CEC has been actively engaged in various industries including garment, tea, bamboo, brick kiln, handloom, leather, stone, automotive, and fisheries, with a focus on addressing issues such as occupational safety and health, child labor, migration, decent work, women’s rights at work, social security for workers, just transition, and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods.

The state of Assam takes the lead in the handloom sector, with approximately 48 percent of the total handloom weavers in the State (Handloom Census 2019-2020). An intriguing aspect of handloom weaving in Assam is its predominant association with women, who constitute an overwhelming share of 99 percent of the total weaver population. While weaving is the second-largest source of livelihood after farming, the women weavers are still struggling to grow and mainstream their identity as entrepreneurs in the sector. The existing ecosystem offers many potentials for policy efforts and scheme linkages; yet, access to these support interventions for rural women is frequently fragmented, particularly in the face of structural barriers entrenched with gender bias. Strengthening of village systems, bringing the available linkages to the grassroot women collectives and revisiting the entrepreneurial policies crafted for women in light of their effectiveness for rural geographies is an undeniable need of the hour.

As part of Udyamini- Rural Women Entrepreneurship Program, CEC has launched a 4-year initiative- “Building Sustainable Rural Women Entrepreneurs in Handloom Value Chain”, aiming to support 1000 Rural Women Entrepreneurs in handloom value chain in Assam through incubation and acceleration support, with key focus on:

• Strengthening village level production systems and enhancing business management skills of the RWEs through tailored handholding support;

• Developing collectives of RWEs towards building village level collective enterprise models by strengthening leadership within a collaborative framework, and building brand identities towards improved visibility as entrepreneurs;

• Facilitating financial and market linkages for RWEs to promote business growth, scale and sustainability;

• Building RWE’s resilience against socio-cultural barriers for effective engagement across business processes, RWE networks and ecosystem stakeholders;

• Enabling the ecosystem to gain improved awareness for effective responsiveness, and strengthening local infrastructure for RWEs through creative collaborations and partnerships with key stakeholders.

CEC is committed to undertake following capacity building interventions for RWEs:

• Production Development Program (PDP): PDP is a village level- tailored handholding support initiative enhancing production capacities of RWEs through value added design support, diversified product range in tune with evolving market needs, adapt process innovations in weaving techniques, and attaining standardisation, finishing and productivity towards improved marketability. Additionally, resources such as good quality yarn, tool kits, design graphs are also introduced to the RWEs, thereafter providing day to day intensive tailored support via Master Trainers. Other than being a 40-day intense village level hands on-training program to build production systems of RWEs, PDP also paves way for organising RWE collectives, enabling early leadership within the group, building foundation for scaled operations and sustainability.

• Building ‘Cadre of Trainers’ for Entrepreneurship Capacity Development of RWEs: With an aim to strengthen the local ecosystem which is capacitated as a sector asset and readily available to offer Business development, management, leadership and expansion skills to RWEs, in handloom sector, we are enabling a cadre of trainers (in collaboration with local CSOs) through an intensive training program, building their skills to impart entrepreneurship development training to rural women engaging in nano/ micro entrepreneurial activities in (but not limited to) Handloom sector. This 3-stage residential program designed upon adult pedagogy & facilitation skills suitable to rural context, is committed to enable existing trainers in the ecosystem to become catalyst for strengthening rural women’s capacities, to grow and thrive as entrepreneurs.

• Entrepreneurship Development Program (EDP): Facilitated by the Cadre of Trainers, this program is focused upon building entrepreneurship capacities of RWEs, in following areas:

– Financial Literacy and Business Literacy: This segment seeks to address the gaps in resources and knowledge by providing stage-wise, comprehensive financial literacy, business management and development skills, enabling rural women to navigate challenges of entrepreneurship and break through growth barriers at various stages of the value chain.

– Strengthening Collective Entrepreneurship and Women’s Leadership: This part of the program focuses on imparting necessary knowledge and skills to thrive as successful business women through Collective-Handloom enterprise model, fostering collaboration, collective success and business sustainability within rural communities. Supported by development and strengthening of leadership skills, focus is also on building women’s capacity to lead effective decision making, driven by collaborative spirit for shared and inclusive action for collective business growth.

– Building Resilience against Gender Barriers: This segment seeks to empower rural women entrepreneurs (RWEs) to break the entry barriers embedded within gender bias and stereotypes, by enhancing their resilience against socio-cultural barriers within immediate ecosystem, with a particular focus on overcoming gender based- violence; restrictions on decision making and mobility for economic empowerment; and barriers impeding acceptance as viable entrepreneurs.

Founded in 2002, Digital Empowerment Foundation has been working to empower marginalised and unconnected communities living at the edge of information by enabling them with digital capacity, access and rights across the pillars of health and agriculture, culture and heritage, with a special focus on digital rights for women and adolescents. DEF has reached out to more than 5 million people in the past 20 years with last mile access, connectivity, solutions, services, training, skilling, livelihood, entrepreneurship, education. With a 10000 strong cadre of digital foot soldiers across India. DEF has interventions in 2,000 locations, in 135 districts across 24 states in India. Some of the acclaimed programs of DEF are Wireless for Communities, where rural women are trained as barefoot engineers who set up and maintain wireless infrastructure; women centric SoochnaPreneur model which has been recognized by the World Bank in 2021. The challenge in enhancing Female Labour Force Participation Rate (FLFPR) in India, particularly in Assam and West Bengal, lies in the untapped potential of rural women entrepreneurs (RWEs) engaged in existing economic activities. Despite their involvement in key value chains, the lack of access to digital technology, information, resources, and support hinders their progression in the emerging digital society and economy. To address this barrier, we are establishing a sustained mechanism for last-mile technology support.

To accomplish this, under the Udyamini Program we are facilitating an ecosystem transformation by bringing about cultural, infrastructural, and technical changes. We are helping women and the community view entrepreneurship as aspirational, we are training them with necessary skills and developing required IT solutions, and establishing RWE (Rural Women Entrepreneurs) associations/hubs.

We are identifying and training 200 rural women entrepreneurs to become SoochnaPreneur Business Mitras who will provide support to 20000 other RWEs at the Gram Panchayat Level. Out of these,20000 RWE’s, 5,500 RWE’s who are engaged in specific identified value chains like Handloom; Livestock;Agriculture; Tea will receive digital solutions support and trainings as per the specific value chain needs.The 200 RWEs will train 100 women each who will further train 2 women each. Thus, the program will impact 40,000 RWEs with digital support, resources, assistance, and facilitation. The SBMs will also cater to 4,00,000 community beneficiaries by providing information and digital services.

Information-digital service value chain (as an emerging one) for potential rural women as digital entrepreneurs in rural areas involving community and other stakeholders, also functioning as an enabler for sustainable development of rural RWE ecosystem with RWE digitization, digital enterprise and management in priority value chains; capacity building trainings at various levels plays a critical role under the Udyamini Program. Thus, DEF has divided its capacity building programs into three target segments which includes:

1)Training of SoochnaPreneur Business Mitra’s (SBM’s): SoochaPreneur Business Mitra is a trained and capable digital business development executive (Soochnapreneur) developed and trained to support RWE ecosystem and needs that emerges from time to time; as rural information-digital service providers (Entrepreneurs). They are digtally enabled facillitators who demonstrate a relevant, sustainable model of digital based solutions and platforms delivery to access and serve business related support, facilitation and services to enhance business of RWEs covering key value chain business needs as well as needs of information and digital services of local community members and

2) Training of Rural Women Entrepreneurs (RWE’s): RWE’s are individuals or collectives who are engaged in doing business in the identified key value chains or sub-value chain for some years i.e. 3- 5 years actively but are lacking formalisation and scalability due to access related challenges that exists in the rural business ecosystem and such other challenges.

3) Cross cut Digital Solutions and Training support: Our SoochnaPreneur Business Mitra have also imparted basic level training on digital book keeping through mobile based platform to 40 Pashu Sakhi’s belonging to our partner The Goat Trust. In the coming period, we have planned for need based capacity building trainings for the RWE’s which are being directly handholded by our partners on digital literacy; financial literacy; digital marketing; cyber safety and security etc.

The capacity building trainings basically focuses on enabling the SBM’s and RWE’s to have access to the 6 A’s namely:

1) Access to Market;

2) Access to Finance;

3) Access to Enterprise Information; Schemes and opportunities ;

4) Access to Enterprise Development Support;

5) Access to Digital Enterprise Management and Solutions and Platforms;

6) Access to Business Counselling and Mentoring.

In 2008, the Environment Conservation Society (ECS) was founded as a nonprofit with a commitment to equitable and sustainable development through promoting ecosystems for Clean Energy, Climate Smart Agriculture, Conservation and Integrated Management of Natural Resources, Just Transition, Skilling, Clean Air and Sustainable Cities. ECS (also known as SwitchON Foundation) is driven by a vision to create a sustainable and equitable India with the mission of promoting sustainable livelihoods and addressing environmental challenges through innovative business models and technologies while creating opportunities for 10 million people at the bottom of the pyramid by 2030. Within the tenure of the last 16 years since 2008, ECS has led 70 innovative projects and incubated successful ventures in the areas of Renewable Energy Access, Agriculture & Livelihoods, Skilling and Environment & Climate Change. This includes promotion of 3 social ventures, over 60 farmer producer companies, and support to the establishment of over 500 microenterprises. Talking about social ventures, it was in 2010 when ECS spun off its 1st enterprise “ONergy Solar” to take decentralised Energy solutions to the underserved. Another enterprise, “ONganic Foods” was spun off in 2015 to address unsustainable agriculture through an alternative ecosystem around organic agriculture. The third enterprise, “ONskills” was spun off in 2017 to incubate Green Entrepreneurs.

WHAT WE DO

Environment Conservation Society (ECS) has extensively been working in areas of Climate Resilient Practices, Decentralised Renewable Energy Access, and Sustainable Livelihood, by facilitating access to credit and schemes, knowledge, technology, raw materials, infrastructure for inbound-operation-outbound logistics, market linkage, and support services. The organisation currently operates under two major verticals – EEWA (Empowering Energy, Water and Agriculture nexus) and CASC (Clean Air & Sustainable Cities). ECS’s work around clean energy, water and sustainable agriculture are clubbed together as the EEWA program. In recent years, ECS has expanded its focus from renewable energy solutions to livelihood enhancement through climate resilient farming practices with a market driven approach ensured by collectivization of producers, building their capacity in value addition to primary produce, followed by market linkage. ECS ensures knowledge transfer through action research, policy research and sharing of evidence with CSO networks and Govt. Departments towards informing “practice to policy”.

WHY UDYAMINI

SwitchON’s approach has always been women centric. In Jharkhand, many women farmers struggle to access government schemes and subsidies due to land ownership issues. SwitchON worked with JREDA to enable women to use affidavits, allowing them to install solar pumps. This helped 475 women gain clean energy access. SwitchON also provided documentation support and training, improving pump efficiency. By providing comprehensive training in groundwater management and participatory watershed management, SwitchON facilitated women-led initiatives for sustainable resource utilisation. Notably, the “Know your Water Level” campaign, spearheaded by 68 trained rural women, has raised awareness regarding groundwater depletion while fostering community engagement in monitoring and management efforts. Furthermore, endeavours in Purulia and Bankura districts of West Bengal have placed a strong emphasis on integrating women into renewable energy ecosystems and promoting watershed management practices. SwitchON’s flagship program, the ‘Urjamitra Training Programme,’ has been skilling women as an added value to the capacity of community in operation and maintenance of the installed solar pumps. SwitchON has already been extensively working with women involved in processing and value addition across paddy value chain. However, a programmatic approach was required for vertical expansion of their entrepreneurial ownership through the entire journey right from raw materials to market as well as expansion of SwitchON’s horizontal outreach in incubating women entrepreneur in other value chains. In this regard, SwitchON signed MoU with West Bengal State Rural Livelihoods Mission (WBSRLM) to build a robust environment for rural women entrepreneurs in West Bengal.

1. Training of Trainers- Progressive women are trained on selected trades, value chains, DRE, Entrepreneurship, leadership. These training at the inception of the program and at the beginning of year 3 will prepare them to train the identified rural women and work closely with the collectives of RWEs.

2. In House Technical (value chain) Training and Entrepreneurial Capacity Building Program for RWEs (First Phase)- These trainings take place with the identified rural women who wish you participate in the training programs and potential service providers in the beginning, gradually reducing targeted intervention in the second year. These training have dedicated training modules and design to help the women to attain value chain related input from an entrepreneurial lens.

3. In House Technical Training (DRE) and Entrepreneurial Capacity Building Program for RWEs (Refresher Training)- Post the first phase training, these trainings will help in setting the narrative of DRE access and adaptation in the value chains chosen by the rural women. These trainings will expose these women with possible baskets of renewable energy solutions and DRE specific technical training on operations and maintenance of the technologies. The training program will also aim at advanced training on entreprenuership in a phased manner.

4. Ecosystem Development – On Field Technical (value chain specific) and Entrepreneurial Exposure Visits of potential RWEs- Exposure visits with the idetified women will take place within the state and outside the state to help them understand the local value chains, markets and processes. Crop demonostrations and related DRE solutions will be showcased. Additionally, similar process will be followed in other value chains.